In response to my previous post, I do believe I have to say that this is the best Zelda game ever made. I never thought the day would come where my beloved Link to the Past would lose its vaunted #1 position. But here it is. Breath of the Wild, best Zelda game ever. And I’m going to go as far to say, one of the best games ever, period, any console. There, I’ve said it.

It’s not very often I agree with “Lame Informer” (or anything GameStop gets their filthy hands on), but I have to concede this time around. 10 – nailed it.

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Possibly the best game Nintendo has released, ever. Yeah, I know, that’s a heavy claim. But it might be true.

Now for years, I’ve been a staunch supporter of “A Link to the Past” as the best Zelda game ever. There are plenty of people that say that “Ocarina of Time” is the best. I’m not even willing to entertain those people. I will accept arguments for other Zelda titles holding spots above “A Link to the Past”, but not Ocarina. The problem with “Ocarina of Time” is that it’s a flawed game, development-wise. A Link to the Past has no flaws (we can argue that another time).

But that’s not what this is about! This is about “Breath of the Wild” being the best Zelda game ever made. Is it? I don’t know yet. But after only playing for about 30 minutes, I found myself uttering that statement to myself. I couldn’t believe the thoughts and feelings I was having. I felt like I was cheating on myself somehow; that somehow these thoughts weren’t true and were simply alien in nature, placed there by outside forces. After 25+ years, has something finally trumped the vaunted The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past? I don’t know. I’m still figuring it out. Either way, I can’t get enough of this game.

I should have expected this from Nintendo though. And now we all know, of course, that it’s officially the Nintendo Switch. I feel that no one was asking for or wanted this, but this is what we’re getting. I’m done with gimmick gaming. And I really hope this isn’t just more gimmicks. I really don’t need detachable controllers or a screen that moves away from the console. The Wii didn’t impress me nor did the Wii U. But you know what I liked about them? Playing good games. I don’t care about new and innovative ways to play these games, I just want them to be good. That being said, if this console is giving me a new Zelda game to play, I will jump in happily. As long as I don’t have to swing my arms around to attack. God dammit I hated Skyward Sword so much. At least you have other options for playing Twilight Princess. But I digress…

Nintendo always seems content to march to their own beat and I’m more or less okay with that. The 3DS has been my favorite system for years now and it’s not because of its 3D effect, it’s because it has, what I consider to be, the best game library available on current consoles. And that’s why I like Nintendo, they produce good games. Even the Wii U I would say I like better than the Xbox One or PS4 (though the PlayStation is quickly changing my stance on that), and it’s all just because of 2 or 3 games that you just can’t live without.

But what’s this hardware capable of exactly? Over the past few decades, storage mediums and the amount of data we can fit on to them has changed drastically. If you told me in 1996 that you could fit my entire PCs hard driver onto a chip that was 1/50th the size physically, but capable of holding 200 times the data, I wouldn’t have believed it (But somehow the prospect of hoverboards was still possible). So when I heard the system was going to use carts like on the DS or Vita, I wasn’t sure if I was happy or not. I prefer physical format over a download, which is a whole different discussion. Now with these tiny cards, I’m still a little worried because even though the 3DS and Vita games look great, they are still nothing compared to the Xbox and Playstation in regards to raw power. So I suppose that will come down to a combination of the hardware specs on the system, how much data they can cram into that little card, and how much of the game content will be download/streaming. I’m also not sure how I feel about using those tiny ass controllers separately, but docked together they don’t look so bad, plus they have a pro controller which I’ll most likely end up getting.

I have so many questions about the new system, but I’ll leave that to the investigators and journalists. I’m just a Nintendo fanboy that’s excited and a little afraid for their new system.

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I know there are about 20 of the original NES games that came with built-in Famicom converters. For those of you that weren’t already aware of this fact, basically, what Nintendo of America did was take the original Japanese PCBs from the Famicom games and add them onto an adapter that contained a lock-out chip so it could only be played on North American system. And is also essentially why American NES carts are so much bigger than Famicom carts. Anyway, of those original games with the adapters, the Japanese PCB would contain either the standard CHR and PRG mask roms, or black blobs – the latter I tend to see far more commonly. What I have never seen, until now, was the picture below.

I opened up my Pinball because I wanted to use the adapter for something else, but I immediately changed my mind once I saw the board. I have never before seen a Famicom board that looked like this, let alone any Nintendo game that had 2 PRG mask roms.

I did a little research and checked around to see if good ol’ Google would turn up anything, even just a picture of a similar board. Couldn’t find anything, so I just figured I’d share. I guess I’d like to know if anyone else has any games like this and just how common/rare these are.

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Been putting together some Mother 25th Anniversary carts to come with me to the Lock City Comic Con in CT this July. Hopefully a Slurpee will be coming with me as well. Mother 25th Anniversary Edition is basically a big overhaul of the Mother/Earthbound Zero prototype that was never released for the original NES.

Come check out the GamesquadSquad booth if you happen to be in the area. I’ll have this and a bunch of other NES repros, custom cases, and perler art and hopefully a special guest with some hand-made, knitted, wearable nerdery.

Perfectly timed completion of this project with the release of Fire Emblem Fates on the 3DS. I finally got my famicom converters so I could assemble some Fire Emblem repros for the NES in english. I’m far from the first to have done these, but I’ve wanted to for some time now and I just finally got around to it.

This series had been around in Japan for over a decade before it finally saw an international release on the Game Boy Advance. There were two for the Famicom – Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, and Fire Emblem Gaiden. I just finished the original today and I’ll be wrapping up Gaiden soon.

I’ll be making these by request if anyone wants one. Though the cart will be standard grey. I just used this clear one for myself to show all the nifty bits inside.

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I’ve been playing Xenoblade Chronicles X a lot lately and I think it’s a great game, though not without its flaws. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about today. Today, it’s about censorship. There’s really no point to anything I have to say. It’s just some stuff that crossed my mind, so if you’re busy, or looking for a more socially relevant story, feel free to go read something else. But if you came on the internet today, like so many others, to waste time, then please, read on.

Now when a game gets localized here from Japan, I expect there to be a good deal of changes and aspects censored because of this country’s outdated puritanical beliefs that the human body is shameful and that seeing any parts of it exposed is a corrupting force.

Typical mother of an 11 year-old boy – “Oh no way! This game has nudity in it. You can’t play that. What about this one though? This just has offensive language and mindless violence. That is far less offensive than the body nature gave us”

Anyway…the 2 main things that I discovered they censored are what drove me to write this.

1) During character creation of a female avatar, in the Japanese release, aside from changing their height, you can also adjust their bust size. Why remove this? Why have it in there in the first place for that matter? Well that one I can answer rather easily – It’s either fan service or if you’re creating an avatar for a game where you have a ton of customization options, why not have a wider range of options you can customize? But in this case, since there are really not too many options for character customization I would say it’s purely for fan service. Still though, why remove it? Probably because someone out there would complain that it “gives girls an unrealistic image of what the female form is supposed to look like,” or some other BS like that. Whatever. Get over it. It’s a video game. It’s a fantasy world where people can escape to. If some lonely, “hopeless romantic” gets his or her (let’s not discriminate now, women love tits too) jollies by running around an alien planet as a big busted bombshell, then let them have their fantasy.

Japan – that 2nd bar is for the bust size

America

2) The female characters in the game all have “armor” sets that are basically strips of fabric passing for underwear. One of the main characters in the game, Lin, is a 13 year-old, young girl. In the Japanese version, she, just like the other female characters, has this revealing armor. Her avatar was censored so that when equipping these particular pieces of armor, it would have a more modest appearance. As much as I think that censoring things is stupid, I also think that sexualizing 13 year olds is awful. I don’t see the point in censoring something in a video game, but then again I also don’t see the point of programming young girls to have sexy clothing unless you’re a sick pervert….but #japan

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There were a total of 94 games released in America for the Turbografx 16. Years ago I made it a mission to go about getting the entire library and it looks like I’m nearing completion. It just so happens that the last dozen or so I need are ridiculously expensive for the most part.

Ballistix

Bomberman ’93

Bonk 3

Darkwing Duck

Falcon

Hit the Ice

Legend of Hero Tonma – maybe possible one day? If I happen to catch someone off guard or they don’t realize what they have. I’ve seen it sell for up to $1,500 though and that’s way out of my range.

Magical Chase – never going to happen. I have never seen this game sell for less than $5,000. Unless someone bequeaths it to me or I murder someone for it, it’s never going into my collection.

Neutopia II

Parasol Stars

Soldier Blade

Somer Assault

Space Harrier

And lastly, manuals for Samurai Ghost, Chase HQ, Air Zonk, and Shockman.